


Spring Cleaning

by SolarMorrigan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, just horrible fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 09:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21335989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: Aziraphale is doing some spring cleaning (for a certain value of the term) and Crowley learns something new
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 84





	Spring Cleaning

**Author's Note:**

> Little soft snippet of a thing. I just wanted Crowley to have some small shred of proof that Aziraphale really has always cared, even when he was too scared to show it

Aziraphale quite likes spring cleaning.

Not the sort of spring cleaning where the windows get washed and the rugs get aired out and the heavy furniture gets vacuumed under – that sort of spring cleaning is fairly useless for a being who only allows messes to happen when they benefit him. Any dust in Aziraphale’s shop has collected mostly for aesthetic reasons—he likes the way it catches the light when it’s stirred up—and the damp smell really is just a smell (no actual damp would _dare_ come near Aziraphale’s books).

The sort of spring cleaning Aziraphale enjoys is the kind where one starts out with the intent to clean, finds a box of memories and then ends up spending the entire weekend sifting through them and actually probably making things messier in the process.

This generally drives Crowley, who appreciates a good _actual_ cleaning, up the wall.

He doesn’t mind the usual gentle mess of Aziraphale’s shop—in fact finds it rather comforting in its familiarity—but goes a bit twitchy when Aziraphale goes tearing things up, calls it cleaning, and then puts everything right back where it was (_right_ back where it was; Crowley’s never measured, but he doesn’t doubt things are replaced nearly to the centimeter).

In the past, Crowley has made himself scarce around the week in spring Aziraphale seems to lose his mind, but the spring following the Armageddon That Wasn’t, Crowley really doesn’t have anywhere to be. Despite the state of the shop, there really isn’t anywhere else he _wants_ to be, so he resigns himself to a weekend of extra clutter and only engages when he can’t figure out why Aziraphale is smiling warmly at a box of rubbish.

“It’s not _rubbish,”_ Aziraphale sniffs, unreasonably defensive of the old pile of papers and odds and ends.

“My mistake. It’s just a box full of really old things that serves no purpose and is taking up space in your closet,” Crowley amends. “Not rubbish at all.”

Aziraphale huffs and nudges the box at him. “It serves a purpose,” he says, in that self-satisfied, mysterious way he sometimes has.

Crowley rolls his eyes but obligingly looks in the box.

It is, at first, exactly what he expects: old playbills, opera ticket stubs, gallery programs – things he can’t imagine why Aziraphale would need to keep. Their memories are exceptional, if not quite flawless; they don’t _need_ items to tie events to the way humans do.

Then he finds the playbill for _Hamlet._

It’s not from the original production, but it’s still very, very old. It was the first performance Aziraphale had convinced (badgered) Crowley into attending with him after Crowley had made it miraculously popular. Crowley still hadn’t particularly cared for the play, but he’d been pleased to see Aziraphale enjoying himself.

Further inspection finds that he recalls attending the operas on all the programs he finds, remembers seeing the movies on any tickets in the box, remembers the gallery shows and concerts. There’s a wine cork that smells of the bottle of wine he and Aziraphale had shared the first time they’d dined at The Ritz (Crowley didn’t have Aziraphale’s head for food, but he never forgot good alcohol) and there’s a flower lovingly pressed between two thick sheets of paper. Crowley remembers a seller on the street presenting it to him with a wink (remembers the dress he wore that day, it had been one of his favorites, but it went out of fashion sometime during his near-century nap) and remembers turning and teasingly tucking it into the buttonhole on Aziraphale’s jacket.

Half the things in the box should have disintegrated with age by now—_would have_ under human care—yet hadn’t, solely because Aziraphale had wanted to keep them.

Crowley looks back up at Aziraphale.

“Well, it wasn’t as though I could ever keep anything that overtly reminded me of you, or – or had belonged to you,” Aziraphale hedges. “Too dangerous.”

Crowley isn’t sure what to say.

“And it never felt right, throwing any of it away,” Aziraphale continues, growing somewhat nervous in Crowley’s extended silence. “I was terribly disappointed to imagine I’d lost these in addition to the shop when–”

Crowley decides not to say anything, and instead reaches out and yanks Aziraphale into a fierce embrace that Aziraphale returns in equal strength after a moment of startled hesitation.

(Crowley still very vocally disapproves of what Aziraphale calls spring cleaning, but is usually loitering somewhere conveniently nearby every time Aziraphale drags out the box of keepsakes.)

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on [Tumblr](https://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/post/187832682588/spring-cleaning-good-omens-aziraphalecrowley). Come wrap yourself up in Good Omens with me over there, if you like


End file.
